Download a quick tutorial to enrolling in WJIL courses, use the Learning Cohort toolkit to get your organization learning together, manage your public access computers with 12 quick tips and attend a webinar on how to create your own reading challenge program. Find it all below in the latest “What’s New @ WJIL.
Contents: Resources | Courses and Learning | Community | What could I do with…? | What’s New RSS Feed 
“What’s New” RSS Feed
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[http://webjunctionworks.org/il/blog/index.php/category/new-wj-il/feed/]
Resources
Quick Guide to the WJIL Course Catalog
- Using helpful screen shots and step-by-step instructions, this quick guide takes the user through the process of WJIL registration, browsing the IL Course Catalog and enrolling in courses successfully. If you want to take advantage of the free courses available through the WJIL Course Catalog, this guide is essential.
- Path: [Illinois Center » Illinois Learning Center » WJIL Course Catalog Help]
Library Law: Hiring a Worker who has been Laid Off
- This article addresses a question submitted by a reader who asked about liability under the Illinois Unemployment Compensation Act (the “Act”) [1] when an employing library, library district or library system (hereinafter, “library”) hires a person who has been laid off from other employment
- Path: [Library Management -> Organizational Management -> Library Law Articles]
Learning Cohort Toolkit for Organizations
- It is quite feasible for an individual to sit alone in front of a computer and acquire new, useful knowledge through online, self-paced courses. However, learning is enriched when we can share the experience with others. Humans are social animals and learning is essentially a social activity. This set of guidelines and recommendations is intended to help you create a richer, more engaging learning environment built around self-paced courses.
- Path: [Library Management » Training & Development » Training Program Management » Build a Learning Organization]
12 Tips for Managing Public Access Computers
- Includes tips on the following: Adobe, Autologon, Disabling Autorun, Hard drive erasing tools, Java, Microsoft Software Donation Program, Replacing the Print button, Safely Remove Hardware shortcut, Screen Capture, and Web-based IM
- Path: [Technology » Public Access Computing » Managing Public Access Computers]
Courses and Learning
Social Learning with Libraries
- For the past six years, library staff have been using tools at WebJunction.org to connect with each other and build new skills for their work in libraries. Meanwhile, the dramatic growth of web-based technology has changed patron expectations of libraries, which means library staff have new needs as well. Join Chrystie Hill, community director at WebJunction, as she describes how WebJunction.org has evolved alongside these trends, to become an integrated ‘learning community’ that’s open, affordable, and always on. Chrystie will also present broader trends in learning and training, demonstrate how our members are using online tools to support their staff or their own professional development, and discuss with you how to shape the future of staff training and library services. Register on L2.
New LibraryU Module on the Course Catalog – Shelving with NLM
- One of the most time-consuming tasks for library staff is training assistants and volunteers about classification systems and how to properly shelve materials. Few tasks are more vital for shelf maintenance and patron access. This most recently added shelving module from the LibraryU collection is designed to provide online training that will help new staff members and volunteers become productive as quickly as possible with a minimum of time investment by the professional librarian. The module explains the classification system used with NLM and provides staff with an interactive way to learn about the system in their own timing and pace.
Bringing Web 2.0 into Academic Libraries
- When the goal is to be “where they are, when they need us,” what does that require at a university library in 2009? As students, staff and faculty move their lives online, university libraries must choose whether to move with them or get left behind. But where is the value in a university library when Google is the new ready reference desk and the libraries’ resources are increasingly digitized? How does a library remain relevant in a socially networked academic world? From their perspective as, respectively, virtual reference and e-learning librarians, Amanda Clay Powers (Mississippi State Univ. Libraries) and Ellen Hampton (Baylor Univ. Libraries) will discuss how libraries can readjust and move their most important resources online—their people. By using social networks and other web-based technologies, libraries can become a value-added member of their community— both online and in person. By using these new tools, librarians can once again hover by their reference stacks with an offer to help that’s just a click away.
Crouching Tigers, Reading Dragons: Creating a Reading Challenge Program
- Join guest presenters from Seattle and British Columbia as they share their experiences and expertise with the Global Reading Challenge/Reading Link Challenge, a program that encourages team building, reading for retention, and cooperation between school and public libraries. Using a “quiz bowl” format, the program has successfully challenged teams of young readers across the country for over a decade. The presenters will demonstrate how the program can fit into your library’s programming, regardless of size or budget; and how it can be done in one building, between public libraries and public schools, or across state or international borders. The program emphasizes books that reflect a diversity of backgrounds, and encourages 4th and 5th grade students of all reading abilities to engage in the “sport” of reading.
Community
LSTA grant recipients from 2009 are now beginning to post their updates to the WJIL site on the LSTA Grant page. We are creating a synopsis of the updates as they come in for you to browse. Check out the list of updates for May 11 and June 8, 2009, or just visit the LSTA Grant Update blog category. See a grant that interests you? Click on the link for the author of the update, connect to their WJIL profile and “friend” them to start a conversation.
What Could I do with…LSTA Grant Updates on WJIL?
As you might know, each LSTA grant recipient from the past year has been asked to post an update on their grant project on the WJIL LSTA page. You won’t believe the variety of projects and creative ways that your colleagues are using their grant funds.
Use these LSTA grant updates to inspire you for your next grant application, to learn more about how you might want to tweak a program for your library, or to just find out how creative the Illinois Library community is. Check out the updates either on the Documents tab of the LSTA grant page, in the weekly synopsis of updates on the WJIL Blog or browse the feed that appears on the Overview tab of the LSTA Grant page.